8
Quain
Someone is goingto die for this, and I knew who. I didn’t have to investigate much to figure out that the dead guy on the floor was from the Reyes Cartel. The tattoo of a crown on his arm gave it away. It was ironic in a way that Reyes meant “king” because he was now facing off with a King, too. Every one of these stupid mobsters thought they were royalty, but they had no idea how to act like true leaders. It was like watching children in the playground slapping each other and crying at the same time.
Either way, I was going to take out the prick who’d ordered the hit, whether it was Reyes himself or someone else. I knew he had cousins and a brother working for him. I didn’t care if I started a war with these assholes. Someone was getting a bullet.
The Kings arrived twenty minutes later, driving into the back alley on their bikes. The door was propped open, I assumed to let in a breeze, and that was how I’d heard the commotion of Luke fighting for his life. I’d moved quicker than I ever had before, grabbing my gun from the salon before running into Luke’s shop, then putting a bullet in the Reyes prick. Watching him collapse dead on the floor had sent exhilaration through me, a reminder of how much Ienjoyedkilling.
It’d been too long since I’d taken someone down.
I’d missed this.
King and Luke spoke together quietly, and King’s face turned red with anger, his fists clenching at his side. Grant, King’s brother and a physician’s assistant at Walnut Creek Hospital, had taken over for me, checking to see if Luke needed stitches, which apparently he did. I’d known that, but to these guys I was a hairstylist, so I had to at least act clueless about these types of things, even if I had patched myself up more times than I could count on two hands.
Undertaker was here, too, staring around at the mess and cursing Luke’s name in ways that had me holding back a smile. With blood splattered across the floor, it would take a while to clean, and no one could do it better than Undertaker. My surveillance of the club told me that. He was the one they turned to for cleanup and body disposal.
“Did you do this?” Undertaker asked, waving at the dead man.
I shrugged. “He was going to kill Luke. I did what I had to do.”
He brushed his dark hair off his face and gave me a narrowed look. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”
A trick question. He wanted to know more about me. The suspicion in his eyes said he didn’t trust me and that was fine. I didn’t need him to trust me—only Luke. “I don’t like police. They’re corrupt.”
He snorted and then glanced toward the back door when his sub came in. Lee was a bigger man, with a lot more bulk than Undertaker, but he was good at listening to Undertaker’s directions. He followed orders naturally, like a man born to be obedient, and even though I wasn’t into the BDSM lifestyle, I couldn’t help but think his submission was beautiful.
He had a tarp in his hands and laid it on the floor. Between him and Undertaker, they had the body rolled onto the tarp in seconds, and then Undertaker was searching the man, checking his pockets and the wallet he pulled out of his pants. He opened the leather wallet and hummed.
“Benito Arroyo—if that’s his real name.” He scrunched up his nose. “License says he lives in San Diego.”
“What’s he doing all the way over here?” Lee asked, his brows furrowing in confusion.
Undertaker grunted and grabbed Benito’s languid arm, staring at the same tattoo I’d sighted earlier. “This is the Reyes Cartel ink.”
“Reyes Cartel?” King moved from Luke over to Undertaker, crouching down beside his friend. “What the fuck do they want? I know they’ve got a beef with Killough, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“No idea. If he was alive, we could probably get answers out of him.” Undertaker gave me a flinty look over his shoulder, and King’s gaze followed his to land on me. He stood and grabbed my arm, manhandling me over to the side of the room. If this was a different situation I would have stuck the knife I had in the ankle of my boot into his eye.
“Want to tell me what happened?” King crossed his arms and glared. The silver in his hair was more prominent than ever and he looked like a man ready to rain hell on someone. King was scary to a lot of people, but I’d dealt with scarier. A leather jacket with a club patch, a gun stuffed into the belt of his jeans, and a mean expression weren’t going to terrify me.
“I’m sure Luke told you everything that occurred. Why do you need me to tell you again?” I asked bluntly.
His mouth curled and he reminded me of an angry snake I’d encountered in Texas during an assignment, rearing its head to bite me. I’d shot it before it could. “Because this is my brother we’re talking about. It’s my job to protect my men, and you, a simple hairstylist, don’t look very upset about killing a man.”
“I did what I had to do.” I raised my chin. “That man was going to kill Luke.”
“Why?” King’s eyebrows rose. “What did Benito Arroyo have against Barber?”
Pursing my lips, I copied his stance and crossed my arms. “Shouldn’t you be figuring that out yourself? It is your club after all. Like you said, I’m a simple hairstylist, who happened to save your brother’s life. I’ve said it to Luke before, but I’ll say it to you, too. The words arethank you.”
Someone nearby coughed and I glanced at Bishop, the Englishman, out of the corner of my eye. He had his hand over his mouth like he was trying not to laugh. One glare from King, though, and he grew very busy with grabbing the bat Barber had abandoned.
King turned back to me. “I’m not going to thank you, Beaumont, because I don’t think you’re telling me the truth. It’s strange that all of a sudden you move next door to Barber’s shop and you’re on his ass for bullshit reasons. You were there when his bike broke down, too.”
I snorted. “The bridge he broke down on was on my way to visit a friend. Coincidence. Andanyonecould have moved into the salon next door, but I bought it. That doesn’t mean I’m up to anything suspicious.”
King didn’t look like he believed me. “Where’d you get the gun?”
